Xeriscape - Drought-Adaptive Horticulture
The Gone Native Drought Adaptive Garden
April 15, 2006
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Woods' rose of the Guadalupe Mountains blooms briefly in the spring. Its stems are covered with spines, and it suckers among other plants.
Penstemon fendleri is a native wildflower of Midland County, but at Gone Native the glories of the local "weeds" are incorporated into the garden's meadows. There are no lawns at Gone Native - they are so boring compared to a meadow of many species of grass and perennials and annuals.
Blackfoot daisy and sandsage grow together in the sandier soils of the region, but blackfoot daisy also adapts to rocky and clay soils.
The freshly leafed out beautyberry is an excellent understory plant - and in the fall will have hundreds of small purple berries.
Thornless prickly pear (nopal) and cedar elm frame another view of the south gate.
From the second loop of the trails of Gone Native, this view towards the house features some Mexican buckey, a nopal in a pot, some chairs and a vase, and the purple entry door to the main residence.
Littleleaf sumac is a sprawling shrub, but these whitish blooms consistently produce red berries that the migrating birds of early May feast on - and the berries provide a wonderful lemonade-like drink, too.
Eastern red cedar have provided food for three resident robins and a half-dozen mockingbirds all winter, and they still have not finished gleaning them all. In the background the bluish foliage of Arizona cypress provides a contrast.
Black locust was a plant brought to the region by the earliest Anglo settlers - if for no other reason but to "grow fence-posts," instead of having to haul juniper/cedar posts from the breaks. They also provided some quick shade for settlers...but old clumps at old homeplaces now cover 5 acres due to the suckering habit of the species.
It just two weeks after the first blossom, Kerrville Phlox has begun to bloom in profusion. Its sweet scent can be smelled for 100 yards downwind.
The Midland county native annual known as goldenwave provides a delicate contrast to the substantial caliche boulder from a gravel pit near Midland. Kerrville phlox has spread near.
Sundrops (a Calylophus), native the gravelly soils of the Mertzon region, does well when paired with sandsage.
Tubetongue (Siphonoglossa) is a native to the Stockton and Edwards Plateau to the east and south of Midland. It is the host plant to a species of small butterfly. Never more than 6 inches tall, it makes a great groundcover among rocks, grass, or other perennials.
Chinaberry blossoms have a fascinating architecture.
7-sisters rose is an old passalong plant brought by the settlers. Old patches will cover hundreds of square feet due to its suckering habitat.
Gregg Ash (which grows in the Glass Mountains and Chisos Mountains) is a small tree with usual blossoms.